Robert Graves

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Transcript of Robert Graves

Double click anywhere & add an idea Robert Graves-Warning to Children-On portents Born: July 24th 1895 Died: December 7th 1985Born in London, EnglandEnlisted in World War IKnown as a war poetwounded by shell fragment in lungGood friends with poet Siegfried Sassoon1961 became Professor of Poetry at Oxford married Nancy Nicholson in 1918split up in 1926 for poet Laura Ridingleft Laura for Beryl Hodge Had a total of 8 children

poet, translator, and novelistOver 140 works in his lifetime1934- James Tait Black Memorial PrizeAmong 16 Great War Poets commemorated on a slate stone in Westminister Abbey's Poet's Corner Beryl Hodge Laura Riding Sassoon children, if you dare to thinkOf the greatness, rareness, muchnessFewness of this precious onlyEndless world in which you say You live, you think of things like this:Blocks of slate enclosing dappledRed and green, enclosing tawnyYellow nets, enclosing whiteAnd black acres of dominoes,Where a neat brown paper parcelTempts you to untie the string,In the parcel a small island,On the island a large tree,On the tree a husky fruit.Strip the husk and pare the rind off:In the kernel you will seeBlocks of slate enclosed by dappledRed and green, enclosed by tawnyYellow nets, enclosed by whiteAnd black acres of dominoes,Where the same brown paper parcel -Children leave the string alone!For who dares undo the parcelFinds himself at once inside it,On the island, in the fruit,Blocks of slate about his head,Finds himself enclosed by dappled Green and red, enclosed by yellowTawny nets, enclosed by blackAnd white acres of dominoes,With the same brown paper parcelStill untied upon his knee.And, if he then should dare to thinkOf the fewness, muchness, rareness,Greatness of this endless onlyPrecious world in chich he sayshe lives - he then unties the string Warning to Children On Portents If strange things happen where she is,So that men say that graves openAnd the dead walk, or that futurityBecomes a womb and the unborn are shed,Such portents are not to be wondered at,Being tourbillions in Time madeBy the strong pulling of her bladed mindThrough that ever-reluctant element.